I was wrong, Polanco is on there in the 40's. Is there any analysis that compares the major prospect ranking sites/scouts to see who's the best at it? Thinking specifically, Baseball America, keith Law and jonathon mayo.

pirates prospects had bell projected as playing first base in their 2018 projected lineup, which was somewhat interesting. the OF was marte, polanco and cutch so that more or less explained why he was playing first.

KennyTheKangaroo wrote:pirates prospects had bell projected as playing first base in their 2018 projected lineup, which was somewhat interesting. the OF was marte, polanco and cutch so that more or less explained why he was playing first.

Troy Loney's future lineup projection also has Bell at first base. If the guy has bum knees, it's probably best to just fatten him up and put him at first base right now.

I definitely believe the Pirates are getting better, unfortunately, the national league has been getting much better as of late. I think there are some pretty interesting comparisons on how other teams are better than the Pirates.

Nationals - They've been throwing a ton of money into the draft and free agents, plus the only recent draft they punted (aaron crow) turned into Drew Storen.Braves - Homegrown hitters and relief pitchers. They don't need a top 2 pick to get talent out of the draft.Phillies - A lot of money, and a good bit of it spent wisely.Reds - Willing to spend more money and are better at developing players.Cardinals - See RedsDodgers - Spending lots of money and developing some elite talent (Kemp and Kershaw)Giants - Spend a lot of money, don't mess around in the draft.

I'm going to say 75 wins. They dismantled the biggest strength of the team which was the back end of the bullpen last year, and the weaknesses aren't improved enough to improve on last year.

So far Locke has given up a leadoff single (Pedroia was thrown out trying to stretch it into a double) and walked two hitters in the 3 batters he has faced. And in a surprise Tim Neverett is in the booth with Jerry Remy, so they're actually mentioning the Pirates once every 5 minutes.